4. Agravain and Mordred hated Guinevere the Queen and Lancelot. Agravain insisted that the King be told of what he swore (and Lancelot later denied on oath) was their adultery. Agravain went to Arthur to tell him that Lancelot and the Queen were betraying him, and must be brought to trial, as the law demanded. He offered to bring proof to Arthur. The King, wanting only to ignore the charge, and loving both Lancelot and the Queen, was forced to accede. He agreed to go hunting and to tell Guinevere that he would be away all night. Agravain and Mordred got twelve knights together — all apparently their own countrymen from Orkney — and hid near the Queen's bedchamber to await events. When Lancelot told Sir Bors that he was bidden that night to speak with the Queen, Sir Bors, uneasy but ignorant of what was afoot, tried to stop him. Lancelot refused to listen to him, and went to see the Queen. At a given moment the twelve knights rushed Guinevere's door, shouting: "Now thou art taken!" and smashed the door open with a bench. Lancelot, who was unarmed, wound his mantle round his arm, let the first man in, then killed him. The Queen's ladies helped him don the dead man's armour. In the subsequent melee Agravain was killed, and Gareth, and Mordred was wounded, but managed to flee. He rode straight to the King and told him of the affray, and Arthur grieved bitterly, because he foresaw the end of the fellowship of the Round Table, and also because, by law, he must now put Guinevere to trial by fire.
(Here follows the inevitable last-minute rescue of Guinevere by Lancelot, and the flight of the lovers to Lancelot's castle of Joyous Gard.) Arthur pursued him, and defeated him in battle, whereupon Lancelot returned the Queen ceremoniously to her husband, and fled overseas. Lancelot, "who ruled all France," went to his castle in Burgundy, and gathered another army to withstand King Arthur. Arthur, leaving Mordred as regent, or "ruler of all England," went with Gawain, and a great host at his back, to attack Lancelot in Burgundy. There was a great battle, with dreadful losses on both sides.
But then it was reported to Arthur that Mordred had had letters forged, purporting to come from overseas with the news of his, Arthur's, death. Mordred had called a parliament, which pronounced him king, whereupon he declared his intention of taking Guinevere to be his queen. But she, being unwilling, fled to the Tower of London, and held it against him. While Mordred pleaded with her he heard that King Arthur was returning at the head of an army to reclaim his kingdom. Mordred thereupon sent around the kingdom to seek support, which he got in good measure, because "then was the common voice among them that with Arthur was none other life but war and strife, and with Sir Mordred was great joy and bliss.… And so fared the people at that time, that they were better pleased with Sir Mordred than they were with King Arthur." So Mordred led a great host to Dover to face his father on landing. A terrible fight ensued. Gawain was found dying in a half-beached boat, and with his last breath he advised Arthur to forgive Lancelot and invite him back to help crush Mordred. Then Gawain died, and Arthur pursued Mordred and his fleeing host and gave battle once more on the downs, where again Mordred was put to flight.
Eventually the two hosts took their stand "westward towards Salisbury, and not far from the seaside." In Mordred's host were the men "of Kent, Southsex, and Surrey, Estsex, and of Southfolk, and of Northfolk." But during the night King Arthur dreamed evil dreams, and into them came Gawain, warning the King that if he should fight on the morrow he would be killed. Once more Gawain advised him to send for Lancelot, and to hold Mordred off with promises, in order to delay the battle till help should come, and Mordred could be destroyed.
So in the morning the King sent messengers to Mordred to promise him "lands and goods as much as ye think best… and at the last Sir Mordred was agreed for to have Cornwall and Kent, by Arthur's days; after, all England, after the days of King Arthur."
Next a meeting was arranged between Mordred and the King. Each took with him fourteen knights, and they met at a place between the two armies. Both leaders had warned their armies that, should the talks fail, the signal for attack would be the drawing of a sword. "And so they met as their appointment was, and so they were agreed and accorded thoroughly; and wine was fetched, and they drank." But an adder crept out of a little heath bush. and stung a knight on the foot. The man drew his sword to slay the adder, and at that the watching hosts attacked one another. Towards the end of the day of carnage Arthur sought out Mordred, who alone of his host still lived. Of Arthur's army only Sir Lucan, Sir Bedivere and the King survived. Sir Lucan tried to dissuade Arthur from seeking Mordred out, for "we have won the field, for here we be three on live, and with Sir Mordred none is on live, and if ye leave off now this wicked day of destiny is past."
But Arthur, unheeding, attacked and killed Mordred, and in so doing received his own death wound. Sir Bedivere carried him to the shore, where a barge awaited him; in it were three queens — his sister Queen Morgan, the Queen of Northgalis, and the Queen of the Waste Lands, with Nimuë, the chief Lady of the Lake. The barge took sail for the vale of Avilion, where the King might be healed of his grievous wound.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
"The wicked day of destiny," as Malory calls it, is the day when Arthur's final battle was fought at Camlann. In this battle, we are told, "Arthur and Medraut fell."
This reference, from the Annales Cambriae, which was compiled three or possibly four centuries after Camlann, is all we know of Mordred. When he reappears some centuries later, in the romances of Malory and the French poets, he has taken on the role of villain necessary to the conventions of romance. Mordred the traitor, perjurer and adulterer is as much an invention as the lover and great knight Sir Lancelot, and the roles played by both in the tales of "King Arthur and his Noble Knights" are filled with the absurdities inevitable in a long-drawn series of stories.
In the fragments of those stories that have been used in this book, the absurdities speak for themselves. Throughout the final debacle Arthur, that wise and experienced ruler, shows neither sense nor moderation; worse, he is tainted with the same treachery for which he condemns his son. If Arthur had had any reason at all to distrust Mordred (for instance over the murder of Lamorak or the exposure of Lancelot and the Queen) he would hardly have left him as "ruler of all England" and guardian of the Queen, while he himself went on an expedition from which it was possible he might never return. Even granted that he did appoint Mordred his regent, it is hard to see why Mordred, with every hope of becoming his father's heir, should have forged a letter purporting to tell of Arthur's death, and on the strength of that seized both kingdom and Queen. Knowing that Arthur was still alive, and with a vast army at his back, Mordred could be sure that the King would come straight home to punish his son and repossess kingdom and Queen. More, the final battle between King and "traitor" was brought about by accident, in the very moment when the King was about to seal a truce with the villainous Mordred, and grant him lands to rule. (it is another, though minor, absurdity that the lands are Cornwall and Kent, at opposite sides of the country, the one already held by the Saxons, the other by Arthur's declared heir, Constantine.)